Hi, reddit. I'm a certified Community Disaster Educator for my local Red Cross Chapter. I meet with community groups, businesses, and families to discuss the hardships associated with local and national disasters as well as help them put together personal disaster mitigation plans, kits, bug out bags, etc.

I'm in the process of updating my workshop participant files and would like to see a list of disasters for which you're prepared or are preparing.

Mostly, stocking up on food and basic supplies to avoiding having to got out more than necessary. It would probably be a good idea to stock up on medical supplies for likely outbreaks, such as influenza, but that is outside the realm of my finances and abilities right now.

One minor but potentially dangerous thing I've noticed is that a lot of people don't know how to turn off the gas, electric and water to their house. I'm in the Midwest where we get tornadoes and that's one thing my dad insisted we know how to do. In a situation where there has been moderate damage to your home, knowing how to do this could be the difference between it being safe shelter and not.

Correct -- I was looking for answers from individuals about their specific disaster mitigation plans.

Yes, I have access to excellent data about the statistical likelihood of events in my area, mitigation plans, etc from my group, DHS, and many other local, state, and Federal sources. I'd asked this same question in multiple subreddits in an attempt to see how the various preparedness communities lined up with reality.

Sadly, due to a poorly title and wording on my part and the fact that most people on reddit don't actually read before commenting, almost everyone who responded thought I was simply collecting a list of possible scenarios. Oh well.

I don't have the stats I collected on hand at the moment but to be honest, what little info I was able to collect wouldn't be very helpful to share.

My goal was to understand what specific disaster scenarios were actually being prepared for in various subreddits and to compare those to the real world probabilities for which I have data in my region. I was hoping to learn if there were differences between what preppers vs. the average person in my classes consider to be high probability scenarios and how each group responded through preparations.

Oh was wondering if you could update us with some best practices that you found across all plans.

As far as best practices is concerned, what's most important is for you and your family to understand what scenarios are likely for your area, what scenarios will have a high impact on you, and to plan for those accordingly within your budget. I usually do this with a simple probability/impact matrix that will be unique to each person or family and can be used as a way to visualize the sometimes overwhelming topic of disaster mitigation. Once you have a matrix established, it's pretty easy to have specific conversations about each scenario and create checklists of what items or knowledge is needed in order to mitigate those situations.

Thank you for your reply, much appreciated. Reading your response I get the sense that you're a bit disappointed in the responses you got . If so, I get that. The idea of what you were going for is a good one though, sharing and learning, right?

I myself didn't even respond since I don't feel very confident in the wisdom I have to share on the subject . Maybe that goes for more of 'us' here. When you say make a matrix I immediately wonder how, and what would that look like to be of use to me.

Maybe we can do a hangout on air sometime where we address the basics, go through questions we all have and you show the basic principles and process. An idea?